Interview: 5 questions with playwright Laura Horton - "I really felt the stress in Edinburgh"
02/02/2025
Laura Horton is a multi-award-winning writer and Plymouth Laureate of Words 2021-23, the first woman and playwright in the role. In 5 Questions With…, she talks about how her new play, Lynn Faces, was inspired by a collision of three different events, what it’s like performing for the first time and Edinburgh stress.
(Watch our conversation here.)
Lynn Faces sees a woman form a punk band after coming out of a toxic relationship. Where did the idea come from?
It's been years in the making. The seeds were planted over 10 years ago. I have a friend called Becky, and I pulled a face at her once, and she said, ‘Oh, that's a Lynn face [Lynn from Alan Patridge]’. So then we would greet each other with the gurn that Lynn does.
Then I came out of a very unpleasant relationship and got very drunk in the pub with my friends, and thought: I need to find some confidence, I want to be in a band.
I've always wanted to be a drummer, so I'm going to start this punk band inspired by Lynn from Alan Partridge. It was an idea that my friend Becky and I came up with.
I booked a gig in a basement bar in Plymouth, sobered up, and realised that absolutely none of us could play. I cancelled it. But I'm a writer, and it just stuck in my head.
Quite a few years ago, I met Viv Albertine from The Slits, and we were having a conversation, and I think she identified that I was in an abusive situation before I did.
And she said, ‘You should read my book’. [Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys]. It felt like the worlds of punk and Lynn were colliding.
Then I saw a wonderful play called Outlier, a beautiful play with music that Malaika Kegode wrote and performed in. And I just thought this [Lynn Faces] is a gig, albeit these people can't play their instruments, unlike Outlier, which is beautifully presented.
It was lots of components coming together.
Writing is a solitary endeavour, but you also perform in Lynn Faces. What is it like bringing your story to life on stage?
It’s the first time I've ever performed in a play, and I'm the drummer, which is lovely. I'm not in the whole piece, which is also lovely and awful because I have to sit backstage and wait to come on, which is so nerve-wracking.
But it felt really important for me to be in this piece of work because of the subject matter.
I play a character who is very knowledgeable about abuse, and the only character on stage, that has a fully formed experience and view and is coming from a place of healing. It felt cathartic to me to be playing that role.
It's been lovely because I'm so used to being on the other side and watching the play. I find the performing very mindful, especially in Edinburgh. It was the nicest part of the day because the rest of it is stressful, and you're running around flyering, which feels very manic.
On stage, you have to go into a place of peace to perform and I really have enjoyed that. And getting to see the audience's reactions is just wonderful.
You mentioned Edinburgh, where Lynn Faces premiered; is it different this time around?
It's way different. Edinburgh should be a place where you take work to experiment and figure things out, but it's so expensive, and you're up against very slick work with a lot of money behind it.
I really felt the stress in Edinburgh because I'd taken this very messy, weird play, and it didn't feel like there was room for it, that there was room to be messy in that way.
But since we came back, I managed to get Arts Council funding to tour the play, and I just thought it really needs a rewrite. I sat down with Jess [Jessica Daniels], the director, and some of the actors, and we talked about what we thought was working and what wasn't.
I went away and did a few rewrites. It's differently structured now; the heart is still the same, but we've got a couple of new songs. We also had to recast one of the roles, and the actor is much younger. It was quite a nice challenge, rewriting the character as a younger person and the dynamics between the friends.
Before, the gig was really about Leah, the protagonist, and I wanted to pull the other characters in more. I'm excited for people who have seen it in Edinburgh to watch it again and see how it's changed and evolved.
Your main part in the theatre-making process is writer. What is your favourite part of the writing process, and what is your least favourite?
It's hard to say because every project has been so different; every play I've written has been under very different circumstances.
I love it when you get the seed of an idea, and it excites you, and you're sitting down and writing notes. And I also enjoy the process of actually getting it out.
Rewrites can be hard when you feel like you've cracked a play, and then you get feedback from a dramaturg, and there's so much to change. But actually, you find joy in the rewrites as well.
It's afterwards because you often have to get things off the ground yourself. As a writer, you come up with the idea, you write it, and then there's no money, so you're scrambling around trying to find people to come on board and find funding.
I find that bit quite difficult. It's never like you get paid to write it, give it over, and then other people take that off your hands.
It's having to be involved in every aspect if you want it to happen. I realised quite early on that if you're waiting for the gatekeeping, you will be waiting a long time.
With theatre, you might get a bit of funding, and you only have a certain amount of time to write the thing, so you can't see a project through in the way you would like or have the time to work on the writing. I find that bit quite difficult.
You mentioned being on stage for the first time before. I'm going to put you in the audience now, what sort of theatre do you most like to watch?
I love comedy, and I love drama, so a good comedy drama. I also like plays with music.
I love Edinburgh in the sense that you can see so many different types of work and often be surprised by something that wasn't really your thing. Anything that's got heart, I'm open to.
But I like lots of different forms of theatre, and it's nice to see as much work as possible because it informs the way that you want to move your career.
Lynn Faces is at the New Diorama Theatre 18 Feb-1 Mar. For more details and to buy tickets visit the New Diorama Theatre website.